Making the Constitution, Part IV

Compromise, slavery, and much debate

Here is Part IV of our series
on the drafting of the Constitution (click here for
Part I,
Part II,
Part III,
Part V). The delegates in Philadelphia in 1787 have agreed to the
"Connecticut Compromise": each State will have two Senators;
Representatives will be allotted according to population. Having
overcome the largest obstacle to forming a Constitution, the delegates
move on to many other key issues, including slavery. The period of
"Great Debates" begins.

August 7: Gouverneur Morris argued that only land-owners should
be able to vote in national elections. Since 9/10 of the people were
farmers and owned land, the requirement would not be unpopular. The
property requirement would be important in the future; when landless
"mechanics and manufacturers" from the cities made a larger percentage
of the population, they would sell their votes to the highest bidder.

We
"view things too much through a British medium," replied Colonel
Mason. Just because Britain had a "freehold" (landowner) rule was no
reason for the U.S. to incorporate one. Everyone who has permanent
attachment to society deserved the vote; merchants, monied men, and
fathers were just as committed to the country's well-being as were
farmers.

Benjamin Franklin agreed that the delegates should not doubt "the
virtue and public spirit of our common people." In the Revolutionary
War, American prisoners had refused to aid the British, while British
prisoners had eagerly assisted their American captors. The delegates
defeated Gouverneur Morris' freehold proposal, with only Delaware
voting in favor.

August 8: South Carolina's Rutledge suggested that
representatives should live in a state for seven years before being
elected to Congress; it would take that long to become familiar with
local affairs. George Mason of Virginia thought seven years was too
long, but liked the principle. Without such a rule, rich men from
neighboring states would get themselves elected through corruption.

The delegates rejected the proposal, instead merely requiring that
congressmen be residents of the states from which elected. As
predicted, out-of-staters did end up in Congress. In 1964, Robert
Kennedy moved to New York and was elected senator by a narrow margin.
New York's very first senator, Rufus King, had also moved in from
Massachusetts.

In
the 1820s King would urge the federal government to sell public lands,
use the revenue to buy slaves from their masters, and help them move
to another country. At the 1787 Constitutional Convention, King argued
that Congress should have the power to regulate or eliminate the
import of slaves. After all, one of the main objects of the whole
Convention was to make America stronger against domestic rebellion,
but slave imports made slave revolts all the likelier.

Gouverneur Morris agreed. Moreover, it was unfair that slaves should
be considered in the population figures that determined representation
in Congress. Slavery "was the curse of heaven on the States where it
prevailed." Free states were happier and more prosperous than slave
states. It was outrageous that a Georgian, "in defiance of the most
sacred laws of humanity" could kidnap Africans and bring them to the
U.S., and thereby "have more votes in a Government instituted for
protection of the rights of mankind," than citizens of Pennsylvania,
who regarded slavery as a horror.

August 10: South Carolina's Pinckney suggested that only a man
with a net worth of over $100,000 should be eligible for the
presidency. Congressmen and federal judges should have at least
$50,000, so that they would be "independent and respectable."

"Some of the greatest rogues," replied Benjamin Franklin, "were the
richest rogues." He added that the Bible said that rulers should "be
men of truth, hating covetousness." (Exodus 18:21). Moreover,
Europeans would be reading the new Constitution, and a property
requirement would harm America's reputation among enlightened men, and
would discourage poor people from emigrating to the U.S. The
convention overwhelmingly rejected the property requirement.

August 16: The Convention discussed whether Congress ought to
be allowed to print paper money. Congress ended up being given that
power, since even those delegates who disliked paper money did not
want to tie the hands of future governments.

Many in the Convention did fear that the government might just run the
printing press to pay its bills, and thereby cause inflation.
Revolutionary America had suffered from exactly that problem. Future
presidents, including Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt, Lyndon
Johnson, and Richard Nixon proved unable to resist the temptations of
printing money to pay the bills.

August 17: Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts worried about the
national army getting out of control. The army should only enter a
state to put down a rebellion, urged Gerry, if the governor or the
state legislature so requested. He adverted to the example of
Massachusetts, where the state militia had put down a Shays's
Rebellion without the aid of federal troops; federal troops would only
have increased the bloodshed.

The Convention agreed, and provided that federal troops could only
suppress a state's domestic violence, "on the Application of the
Legislature, or the Executive."

Over a century later, in 1894, Socialist labor organizer Eugene V.
Debs led a 150,000 man strike against the Pullman Palace Car Company.
Against the express wishes of Illinois Governor Altgeld, President
Grover Cleveland dispatched federal troops to break up the strike;
predictably, heavy violence ensued.

August 20: Morris proposed that the president be assisted by a
council of advisors, to include the chief justice of the Supreme
Court, a secretary for domestic affairs, a secretary of finance and
commerce, a secretary of state, a secretary of war, and a secretary of
the marine. The president could require a secretary to provide a
written opinion about any subject in the secretary's jurisdiction.
Clearly the delegates thought that Cabinet officers in America would
be like those in Britain, with a substantial power base independent of
the president. In fact, the American president developed nearly
complete power over his cabinet. His power to demand a "written
opinion" is superfluous, since he can make a cabinet officer do
virtually anything anyway.

The Convention also decided that no person could be convicted of
treason, "unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt
Act." Benjamin Franklin thought the protection necessary because
"prosecutions for treason were generally virulent; and perjury too
easily made use of against innocence."

In
1953, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed for selling atomic
secrets to the Soviet Union. Quick and painless death was a lenient
punishment for the pair; by giving Stalin the secret of the atomic
bomb several years before Russian scientists could have figured it out
themselves, the Rosenbergs gave Stalin the geopolitical strength to
start the Korean War. The Rosenbergs' hands were stained with the
blood of every Korean, American, and Chinese who died in that war.

Nevertheless, the Rosenbergs' death sentence may have been improper.
Because they had operated in careful secrecy, there was no
Constitutionally-sufficient proof of their treason. Instead, they were
convicted of conspiracy to commit treason. This legal trick, even when
employed against accomplices to mass murder like Julius and Ethel
Rosenberg, degraded the rule of law in America.

August 22: The Convention returned to the slavery issue. Roger
Sherman from Rhode Island, himself a strong opponent of slavery,
stated that there was no need to give the federal government power to
regulate the import of slaves. Several states had already abolished
slavery, and "the good sense of the several States would probably by
degrees compleat it." Perhaps Sherman's reasoning persuaded Northern
delegates to accept compromises with slavery in order to forge the
Union, hoping that the Southern states would abolish slavery on their
own one day.

The view was a reasonable one; slavery was in economic decline.
However, the 1793 invention of the cotton gin later rescued slavery
from economic death.

Although Colonel Mason himself owned slaves, he opposed any
pro-slavery compromises. He explained that slavery discouraged arts
and manufactures, and would prevent the immigration of whites. "As
nations can not be rewarded or punished in the next world, they must
be in this. By an inevitable chain of causes and effects, providence
punishes national sins, by great national calamities." During the
Civil War, President Lincoln's second Inaugural Address took up the
theme again: "American slavery is one of those offenses He now wills
to remove...He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the
woe due to those by whom the offense came...every drop of blood drawn
from the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword."

General Pinckney answered: South Carolina and Georgia would never join
the Union if forbidden to import slaves. The more slaves, the more
prosperity and trade there would be for the whole nation.

While slavery divided the Convention, there was unanimous agreement to
bar Congress from passing any Bill of Attainder (an act to punish
someone without judicial trial).

August 25: The Convention reached its compromise on slavery.
Congress could forbid slave imports after 1808. Until then, Congress
could levy an import tax of ten dollars per slave. Slavery had
threatened to tear the Convention apart. In order to make the several
States into one united country, the Northern delegates had accepted
the temporary necessity of accommodation to slavery.

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